Budget test for SA health system still ‘under siege’
As SA’s health spending continues to surge, the Australian Medical Association says it will put this year’s dollars to the test, looking for “bang for buck”.
Health Minister Blair Boyer has announced that this week’s State Budget would hit a record health spend of $10 billion from the Malinauskas government, but the Australian Medical Association SA President says he wanted to see change for a frontline “constantly under siege”.
AMA President Professor Peter Subramaniam said when he stares down the pile of budget papers this Thursday, he would look for “evidence that we are doing something different”.
“There’s no point just doing what we’ve been doing in the last four years because last year was an example where we had record ambulance ramping,” he said.
“We want to see a shift of that investment to where it matters the most, where it’s the most effective and that is in community and preventative care.”
Since the 2022 State Election, patients have spent more than 164,000 hours waiting on ambulance ramps – the equivalent of more than 18 years lost to delays, according to AMA figures.
At the March state election, neither the state government or SA Liberal parties pledged to fix ramping – the key pledge for Labor at the 2022 election.
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When faced with his first ramping results in the job as Health Minister last month, Blair Boyer said “we didn’t achieve what we said we wanted to [but it] wasn’t for lack of investment.”
Health spending made up about 30 per cent of last year’s budget, totalling $9 billion since the Malinauskas Labor government was elected in 2022, and Health Minister Blair Boyer said this year would see the spending tally more than $10 billion.
Boyer said the funding was “a once-in-a-generation investment in our health system”. Liberal shadow treasurer Ben Hood called the record “disingenuous” and a “health budget blowout”.
Subramaniam said the dollars were significant, but “have got to make a difference”.
“Commentary on ambulance ramping hours doesn’t solve the problem. We need to be talking about who’s on that ramp, what can we do to actually minimise them needing to come to hospital,” he said.
The AMA would test this week’s state budget against three key elements: genuinely new – and not “recycled” announcements – staffing, and whether it treats the cause of SA’s continuing ramping problem.
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“Let’s fix the cause, not just the queue,” Subramaniam said.
Subramaniam would also like to see a workforce plan in place to tackle keeping health workers, doctors and nurses in the job, saying many of them are leaving; “an understandable human response if you’re working on a front line which is constantly under siege”.
“A bed is only a bed when it’s staffed,” Subramaniam said.
Allocated spending on community, mental health services, palliative care, regional supports and general practice were other key areas the AMA were looking for in this year’s budget.
“At the end of the day, we know, the evidence shows that if you invest in general practice, if you invest in community care, essentially primary care, you get the most bang for buck.”
The AMA also believed the levers to solve SA’s ongoing ramping crisis extended beyond the health portfolio, saying payroll tax – a treasury matter – was hitting GPs hard, and something the AMA wanted to see change.
This week’s budget is expected to deliver on election commitments, which included $3 million for planning a Concordia hospital in the Barossa region, $33 million for five new women’s health clinics, a $13 million medical training centre in Mount Gambier and $400,000 to expand specialist nursing services.
Health Minister Blair Boyer said more than 600 extra beds and more than 130 mental health beds have been added across SA to ease hospital pressures and more than 4000 workers had joined the state’s health system in the past four years.
A $22 million Crisis Stabilisation Centre next to the Lyell McEwin was also expected to admit its first patients this month, the 16-bed centre designed to provide short-term stays for people experiencing a mental health crisis or suicidal distress.
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